


The Middle of the Story

by Lissadiane



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: But with some changes because fuck Infinity War and Natasha deserved better, Clint is literally a unicorn, Couldn't save everyone though, Cryptids, Depression, Grief, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Lucky is the best dog, M/M, PTSD, Post-Infinity War, Recovery, Self Esteem Issues, Whoops I meant End Game, and Steve - Freeform, canon-adjacent AU, sorry Tony, unicorn AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27571798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lissadiane/pseuds/Lissadiane
Summary: Sometimes things go to shit and running is the only option, Bucky knows. There’s nothing wrong with retreat, with choosing to hide, to regroup, to care for his wounds and remember his dead and try to figure out what the fuck the point of waking up even is anymore.Hell, Bucky’s done it.And if it was his choice, he’d leave Barton to do it too.But he’s got nothing left to do with his life except fulfill the only promise Natasha ever asked him to make, so that’s what he’s gonna do.Post End Game AU in which Clint is a special kind of cryptid, the kind someone with as much blood on his hands as Bucky's got has no business touching. Doesn't stop him from wanting to, though.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Comments: 43
Kudos: 243
Collections: Charity Hawktion 2020





	The Middle of the Story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GreyishBlue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreyishBlue/gifts).



> Written for [Bobbi](https://greyishbobbi.tumblr.com/) who so graciously bid on my work in the [Charity Hawktion!](https://charityhawktion.tumblr.com/) Thank you, you're amazing. He asked for touch-starved cryptids and I hope this qualifies. He's not a bigfoot or a Loch Ness Monster but I did my best.
> 
> IMPORTANT: This story deals with some pretty heavy themes of death, grieving and depression that may be read as suicidal though that wasn't my intent. It's ultimately about healing and I did my best to balance out the hurt and the comfort, but if you're worried about what exactly that looks like, I'll include a detailed description with spoilers in the end note to help you decide whether this is a story you want to read or not. I'll also list exactly which parts of canon I fucked with in case you're worried about that.
> 
> The title comes from the story The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle because it seemed relevant.
> 
> Thank you to Skoosie for cheerleading and Nny for betaing and CB and Stella for listening to me moan about cryptids for so long.
> 
> And thanks to everyone who organized and participated in the Hawktion!

The Middle of the Story

_Things must happen when it is time for them to happen. Quests may not simply be abandoned; prophecies may not be left to rot like unpicked fruit; unicorns may go unrescued for a very long time, but not forever. The happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story. -The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle_

The thing about promises is that usually the only ones worth keeping are the ones given to people who aren’t around anymore to make sure they’re kept. Sometimes Bucky feels like the weight of all the promises he’s made have been pressing down on him his whole life -- all his lives -- making him claustrophobic and making it hard to breathe.

Sometimes he resents that all his most important choices were made to honour a promise made to someone he’s lost. Other times, it feels like those promises are the only thing guiding him forward, and going forward is better than standing still.

He’s going forward now, driving his beat up Chevy down another narrow highway, pastures rolling out on either side. There’s too much space here, it’s too empty and he doesn’t like it. It’s too dry and too bright and too dusty and the sightlines are indefensible and it all reminds him of things he’d thought he’d forgotten, like battlefields heavy with dust and blood and bone and the screams of the soldiers he’d fought alongside.

It’s been so fucking long. Bucky had half thought all those memories were gone, cut out of him when Hydra molded him into something new, but now, after everything -- after he’d lost everything. Well. It’s quiet and empty and still and the thing he’d never realized was that if the fights stopped coming, there would be so much extra space and time to remember. 

There aren’t any incoming shells here, though. No bullets, no blood. Just dead, dusty fallow fields that had been forgotten five years before, when the snap meant there weren’t enough people to farm them.

The drought hadn’t helped. Bucky’s not sure when it rained last out in this part of the country. He can feel the dust in the back of his throat and his eyes feel gritty with it, or with exhaustion. It’s hard to say.

He’d rather be just about anywhere but here.

But he made a promise and he’s going to keep it. Natasha deserves that much, at least, after everything.

The sun sets, hazy and orange and slow, and the night is a welcome relief from the heat. He should pull over and sleep but he’s been driving for four days straight now and he’s so close to his destination, he’s just got to keep going. 

He keeps breathing; sometimes that’s the hardest thing.

*

Bucky turns off the highway somewhere around 2 am. An old Bob Dylan song is playing on the radio and he’s left exhaustion behind, caught somewhere in the shaky, almost hysterical place that comes after, when he crests a hill and heads into a winding river valley. There are trees here, twisted pines and dead birch trees and a narrow trail that leads down along the river.

He follows it, only stopping the truck when he gets to the barbed wire gate with the “Keep Out” sign hanging precariously from it. “Private property,” another sign says. “No hunting, assholes,” says a third.

He’s half expecting security cameras, traps, something to indicate some degree of concern for personal safety. There’s nothing though -- nothing he can see -- and if it’s there and he missed it, he deserves to walk right into it.

“C’mon, boy,” he says, quiet, as he opens the truck and slides to the dry ground, kicking up small clouds of dust as he does. Lucky slips out of the truck after him, stretching sleepily before looking around, wagging his tail and then sniffing out a good tree to piss on.

Bucky grabs his duffle bag, slings it over his shoulder, locks the truck and then snaps the lock off the gate with his metal hand. There’s a bit of tension coiling in his chest, a fight or flight instinct that’s been angling towards fight just about all his life. He doesn’t know what to expect but he’s bracing himself for a fight and he’s pretty sure he’ll win it, but he’s exhausted and tired right down to his bones, so he’s at a disadvantage.

It isn’t even dawn yet, so maybe he’ll have the element of surprise though.

Sometimes things go to shit and running is the only option, Bucky knows. There’s nothing wrong with retreat, with choosing to hide, to regroup, to care for his wounds and remember his dead and try to figure out what the fuck the point of waking up even is anymore.

Hell, Bucky’s done it.

And if it was his choice, he’d leave Barton to do it too.

But he’s got nothing left to do with his life except fulfill the only promise Natasha ever asked him to make, so that’s what he’s gonna do.

*

Lucky catches the scent half a mile down the river and Bucky wasn’t sure he’d catch it at all. According to Kate, Lucky’s never been good with tracking. Bucky hadn’t thought the dog would even remember Clint’s scent after two years without him, but Kate had just rolled her eyes when Bucky had mentioned that. 

“Of course he’ll remember,” she’d said. “There are some things a dog won’t ever forget.”

Bucky figures maybe he’s just not used that that kind of loyalty.

Lucky takes off and Bucky feels relieved that they must be close, and the tension in his chest grows just a little tighter.

He catches up to Lucky as he rounds a bend in the path and comes upon a small cabin. It’s dark and locked up tight, small with sloped gables and a crooked porch, a little window and a chimney. There are spider webs in the rafters, along the doorway, weaving in and out of the railing posts of the porch. Any doubt Bucky has that this is the right place is forgotten when he sees a target hanging from a tree nearby, an arrow shot right through the centre of the bullseye.

Bucky has a plan -- the vague beginnings of a plan, anyway, that involve making himself comfortable out here and waiting til morning to knock on the door like a civilised person. It involves making sure Clint doesn’t feel threatened or cornered, so maybe they can work this out like adults and it doesn’t have to degenerate into a fight.

His plans all go to hell when Lucky launches himself up onto the porch and jumps against the door and starts literally fucking howling.

Bucky’s still trying to come up with a back up plan when the door swings open. It’s dark, the moon is barely out, but Bucky’s night vision is better than it should be, and he can still see the way Clint’s face is pale, drawn, with dark circles under his eyes. He can see the scruff on his cheeks and his jaw that speaks more to a general lack of care than any sort of laziness. Bucky can almost feel the empty sort of listlessness that pours off of him, like somehow the dark night got a little darker.

But not even Clint Barton’s broken heart can stand up against Lucky, whose howls have shrunk to tiny, frantic whimpers, who’s wagging his tail so hard his whole body is shaking.

“Aw, Lucky, no,” Clint says, voice rusty, cracked. “Fuck.”

And then he’s on his knees and wrapping his arms around his dog’s neck and he’s not threatening to shoot Bucky unless he gets the fuck off his property, so that’s better than Bucky half expected.

He hadn’t expected him to look quite so empty though. Bucky’s seen Clint a lot of ways in the few months they spent together, on the run from Tony and his accords and the security council and whatever else. He’s seen him exhausted, half dressed, drinking coffee out of the pot and scraped up and bruising. He’s seen him sloppy drunk and flirty, slowly slumping over on an old armchair in a safehouse, wasted on an old bottle of whiskey he found hidden in the kitchen. He’s seen him steady and waiting for the perfect shot, his whole body still and focused like a cat about to pounce, all corded, carefully controlled strength in his shoulders, his arms, his back. He’s seen him in his underwear, lazily waking up in sunlight spilling through a motel window, stretching his arms up over his head and grinning, sleepy.

He’s never seen him empty, cold or dull. His shine is gone.

Bucky would have noticed it even if Natasha hadn’t told him what Clint is.

“Hey,” Bucky says, shifting his weight in his hips and fighting the urge to fidget. He knew this would be awkward but he didn’t really think Clint would be this good at pretending Bucky’s not there at all. But he’s still kneeling on the porch, wrapped around Lucky, holding tight and pressing his face to Lucky’s neck while Lucky tries his best to lick at any bit of exposed skin he can find.

At first, Bucky thinks Clint’s gonna keep pretending he’s not there. But slowly, reluctantly, Clint pulls away from Lucky just enough to lift his head, to study Bucky in the dark. And Bucky hopes desperately that the shadows in his eyes are from the night, the moonless sky, the interrupted sleep, because he’d always been taken by just how bright, how blue, how pretty Clint’s eyes were and now it’s like looking at a stranger.

“You’re wasting your time,” Clint says finally, and his voice is rough and so, so tired. “But you might as well have some coffee before you go.”

Honestly, it’s more hospitality than Bucky was expecting.

*

The cabin is small. One open room with a wood stove for cooking, a threadbare loveseat, a rocking chair that looks like it’s about to fall apart. There’s a narrow staircase leading to a loft where Bucky assumes Clint sleeps, and a tiny bathroom tucked underneath it. 

It’s dark and Clint lights it up with an oil lamp which makes the whole thing soft and warm with shadows that flicker with familiarity in the corners. Bucky’s gotten used to shadows like that.

Clint doesn’t speak.

He’d never really been quiet before unless he’d been still with his bow in his hand, waiting to make a shot.

It’s unnerving and Bucky hadn’t ever thought this would be easy, but he’s starting to worry he might be in over his head.

He clears his throat while Clint puts a kettle on, pulling out a jar of instant coffee. “Haven’t seen you in a while,” Bucky tries. It sounds as awkward as he feels.

Clint shrugs a shoulder and finds two chipped mugs in the cupboard. Lucky is sitting on the floor, happy as a clam, pressed against Clint’s legs and thumping his tail happily on the floor, tongue lolling, and even as he makes the coffee, Clint keeps one hand on his dog, petting him.

“Has it?” Clint asks finally.

“Two years,” Bucky tells him. He remembers what it was like, losing time, and he’s not sure if that’s what’s happening here, but hell, even if it’s just general apathy, the result’s the same.

“Huh,” Clint says and Bucky takes the mug Clint hands him before awkwardly taking a seat on the short sofa. He sinks in, cushions buttery soft and worn, and some of the aches in his bones ease at the first sip. The coffee is terrible -- too strong, too black, and _instant_ , but the warmth sinks into him the way he sinks into the sofa and it feels like safety, like home.

Clint’s always felt like that, somehow.

Clint takes the rocking chair and it creaks alarmingly under his weight. He looks like a shadow of himself, there’s barely any expression on his face at all. It’s just dull, lifeless, empty.

Bucky doesn’t know how to do this. He expected emotion. He expected rage or grief. Not emptiness. It reminds him of how cryo felt, a little, and he looks away because the cold blankness in Clint’s face makes his hands shake, makes his throat ache with the long-repressed urge to beg his handlers for mercy, for warmth, for anything but the cold.

“How’ve you been?” Bucky asks, after taking a hasty, scalding swallow of coffee.

There’s a faint hint of a smile on Clint’s lips but it’s just as empty as the rest of him. “Oh, I’ve been swell, Barnes,” he says. “Fuckin’ peachy.”

“You used to call me Bucky,” Bucky says, because he’s feeling helpless and grasping at anything, anything at all that might crack through the ice Clint’s wrapped himself in.

Clint gets up, his mug empty, going to the sink. “I used to think you wanted me to,” Clint hums, barely any inflection. He pours more hot water into his mug, adds some instant coffee, starts to stir and says, “What’re you doing here, Barnes?”

And here it is. Might as well put all his cards on the table. “I made a promise,” he says, soft like a secret. “Natasha asked me--”

Clint drops his mug, full of fresh made coffee, into the sink with a sharp clatter that sends burning hot liquid splashing over the counter, the wall and Clint’s unprotected hands.

He moves like a robot, ignoring the sting and the mess, turning towards the loft and walking like it’s automatic. “Don’t have any spare pillows or blankets,” he says, starting up the stairs. Lucky pads happily along behind him. “But you can sleep on the sofa and leave in the morning.”

Bucky tries to call after him but Clint doesn’t bother to reply.

*

“I think I have a thermos,” Clint says. It’s barely past dawn and he’s slamming his way through the cupboards, rummaging through tumblers and mason jars while water boils on the stove. “I can make you some coffee to go.”

He doesn’t look like he’s slept. Hell, Bucky doesn’t feel like he’s slept either so he’s not in a place to judge. He’s got a crick in his neck and an ache in his back.

Only Lucky looks content, well-rested and happy this morning. He’s shadowing Clint, leaning against his shins while he fumbles through the cupboards.

“Thought we could talk before we go,” Bucky says, voice coming out thick and rough like molasses. Like the shit Hydra used to claim was coffee. Like something broken and slow and not quite awake, with sharp edges where you don’t expect them. He clears his throat.

“Don’t think that’s necessary,” Clint says, easy as pie. He pulls out an old school thermos, heavy duty and dented, with peeling paint that might once have been the Ghostbusters logo. “Haven’t had anything to say to me for just about two years now, barely had anything to say to me before. So--”

“I was dusted before,” Bucky says, slow. “Otherwise I’d probably have had a few things to say.”

There’s a sudden tension in Clint’s shoulders, tighter than when he’s holding a bow, even. He doesn’t move, not for a long moment, and when he finally does, it’s to take a deep, careful breath and that’s when Bucky realizes he’d been holding it.

Clint closes the cupboard carefully and when he turns to face Bucky, who’s sitting hunched over the crooked kitchen table, there is a leashed sort of fury in his eyes. It’s a bit of sparkle, at least -- better than dull and lifeless.

“Too bad you weren’t around,” Clint says, leaning back against the counter, bracing himself on his palms, elbows at sharp angles. Lucky stretches out happily across his feet. “I had a bunch of shit I’d been waiting to say to you.”

Bucky manages not to wince. “Didn’t think we were gonna do this,” he admits, rubbing at the back of his neck. He shoulda realized. They’d left too much unfinished business to just sweep it under the rug. But he’d kinda hoped -- for Clint, it had been, what, seven? Eight years? 

Bucky had kinda hoped that would be long enough for all of that -- all the ways Bucky fucked things up -- to be forgotten.

“Yeah, well,” Clint says, falsely bright. “Didn’t think I was gonna see you again, so. Here we are.” He turns back around, starts aggressively filling the thermos with boiling water.

His motions are jerky, barely contained agitation, and even before, when he’d been clumsy and easily bruised, Clint had always had an innate sort of grace to his movements. Even stubbing his toe or bumping his head or tripping on his way up the stairs, he’d always had a bit of a dancer in the way he moved.

But now, he’s all off-centre, off-balance. Something is wrong and broken inside him and Bucky would know it even if he didn’t know what Clint was. What he was meant to look like.

“You okay, Barton?” he asks, soft. Gentle. Careful. The way he always meant to be with Clint, before, but never quite managed.

The thermos slips and spills scalding water across the counter and Clint sucks in a breath when it burns his fingers. He curses, quiet and furious, and sucks on the burn, turning back to glare at Bucky with eyes that are suspiciously bright now, anger and pained tears and frustration and anything is better than nothing, Bucky supposes.

“It wasn’t supposed to take this long,” Clint snaps. “You weren’t supposed to find me, even if you came looking. I was supposed to be gone. I was supposed to -- either way, there wasn’t gonna be anything left for you to find.”

Bucky winces. He wants to stand up, to go closer, to say something, anything, to soothe that twisted anger off Clint’s face, but he knows he doesn’t have that right any longer. “Clint,” he says. “She wouldn’t want that. You know she wouldn’t.”

Clint turns around and slams his closed fist into the cupboard door, worn wood splintering beneath the blow. Bucky’s not sure if the sickening crack was just the wood or bone as well, but Lucky hops up and paces nervously when he smells the blood welling from Clint’s scraped up hand.

“It doesn’t fucking matter what she’d want, Natasha’s dead.” Clint hisses, and if he’d radiated home and safety before, now it’s all darkness, all fury, and it reminds Bucky of endless nights in the dark in the trenches, never knowing which bullet, which shell, was coming for you and knowing it could be any second. It’s hard to breathe sometimes, faced with the kind of darkness that clings.

It’s all rage and grief and broken pieces and Bucky doesn’t have the first idea how to start fixing it. Or if it can even be fixed.

Before he can start to figure it out, Clint storms out of the cabin, Lucky following, and the door slams shut behind them.

It could have gone better, Bucky thinks, as he starts to clean up the mess.

But if Clint’s gonna spend the day working off his fury in the woods, then he’s not gonna spend it trying to pack Bucky a lunch for the road and sending him on his way, and at this point, Bucky’s willing to count any victories he can, even the small ones.

*

It’s getting dark when Clint comes back, and Bucky has been trying not to worry about him. He’d given him space, though he’d spent the day wanting to run after him and make sure he was okay. It wasn’t his place, though, he knows, and sometimes grief demands privacy to be felt.

But he keeps himself busy. He finds wood and tools in the shed and replaces the broken cupboard door. He rehangs the door to the pantry that’s started to stick. He replaces a rotten floorboard and tightens the latch on the window. He cleans the soot built up under the stove and shakes the dust out of the curtains. He sweeps cobwebs out of the rafters. He scrubs the warped window glass until it shines, until more natural light shines through, though the forest still looks twisted and tilted through it.

And then, when Clint’s still not back, Bucky rummages through the pantry and starts cooking up some spaghetti with canned pasta sauce.

Clint’s never managed to stay away from food someone else was cooking.

He’s just straining the water from the pasta when Clint comes back, looking exhausted, dirty, sullen, his eyes rimmed in red and lines of tension around his mouth.

“Thought you’d be gone,” he says to Bucky, rubbing at his mouth.

“I wasn’t sure you wanted to keep the dog,” Bucky says with an easy shrug, like there aren’t a million deeper currents running under this conversation, threatening to sweep it away. “You left him behind when you ran two years ago.”

“He was in California,” Clint snaps, hovering closer, staring hungrily at the food. “With Katie Kate. I did not abandon him. She always takes better care of him. I couldn’t -- I wasn’t in the best place -- he deserved better. He always deserves better than what I can give.”

Lucky whines and pushes his nose into Clint’s hand, tail thumping against the new floorboard, and Bucky says, “Sure. I’ll take him with me, then.”

He hides a smile when Clint’s hand twists in Lucky’s fur, holding tight like he doesn’t want to let his dog go. Bucky can’t believe he’d left Lucky behind in the first place but, well. It’s the sort of self-sacrificing bullshit Clint would do. As if he didn’t realize Lucky would spend everyday for the next two years watching out the window and waiting for Clint to come home.

If Bucky hadn’t promised Natasha that he’d take care of Clint if something happened, then he’d probably have ended up here anyway, under threat from Kate, who declared that if someone didn’t find this asshole for Lucky, she’d have to do it herself and Clint probably wouldn’t survive the encounter.

*

Bucky’s putting the pasta on the table when he notices Clint’s hand, knuckles cracked from punching the cupboard, all dried blood and dirt just begging for an infection. He doesn’t say anything, just pulls the first aid kit he’d noticed under the sink out and drops it on the table and Clint sighs.

“It’s fine,” he says, tired.

He’d always had bruises and cuts, always needed some sort of first aid, the few weeks Bucky spent with him before, when Bucky was fresh from Hydra and a complete mess and they were all following Steve into hiding. Tony Stark wanted him dead and the security council wanted them all locked up and Bucky always knew Steve would march into hell to save him, even before the serum, but he’d never expected Steve to defy every authority to keep him free.

Hell, he should have. Steve never had been able to back down a fight, even one that wasn’t worth fighting. 

It took almost all of those weeks for Bucky to start to believe that maybe… maybe his freedom was worth fighting for. And if Steve was willing to fight this hard for it, maybe it was time for Bucky to start fighting too. To get better. Stronger. To be willing to actually try to build a life worth having.

And the first step, the first logical step, seemed to be stitching Clint up when he got back from somewhere, bleeding from a deep gash in his side and bruised along his cheekbone and filled with righteous indignation about some asshole mugging some old lady outside the supermarket.

That was the first time Bucky touched anyone on purpose, with an intent other than to hurt.

He still remembers how the blood felt, drying on his hands.

He doesn’t touch Clint now. He’s very careful about it. He watches though, stern, until Clint rolls his eyes and opens the kit and starts carefully picking the dirt and debris out of the cuts.

It’s quiet. Dark. The cabin is lit up by soft lantern light and a few scented candles, blending together apple blossoms and ocean breeze. Shadows sway with the flickering flames. It’s still too warm outside, too dry, no wind at all running through the trees. 

And Clint and Bucky sit closer than they have been since that night, seven years ago.

Bucky fills his plate with pasta and Clint’s too, as Clint starts washing the cuts with disinfectant. Clint’s hands are both shaking and he’s careful to avoid looking at Bucky, careful not to make eye contact.

Bucky knew this would be hard -- seeing Clint now. But he hadn’t imagined how much it would hurt, down to his bones. And he’d kinda hoped Clint would be fine. That he’d check in, see he was fine and leave again. Though he really had nowhere to go.

But Clint isn’t fine. And Bucky made a promise.

He’d want to help him even if he hadn’t, though.

Clint’s the one who breaks the silence, which is great, because Bucky’s still trying to think of something to say. It’s after he almost spills the bottle of disinfectant and Bucky catches it instinctively just as Clint goes to do the same. Their fingers almost, almost touch and Bucky yanks his hand away so quickly, the bottle falls anyway, the sharp chemical scent drowning out the apple blossoms and ocean breeze as it spills on the table.

Bucky goes for a rag to clean the mess, Clint grabs the bottle before any more can spill. As Bucky mops up the spill, Clint says wryly, softly, just this side of painful, “You didn’t want to touch me in Prague, either.”

Bucky sucks in a breath, feeling that like an unexpected blow. He doesn’t mean to say it -- he didn’t come here for this, he knows he doesn’t deserve this -- but he says, “You’re an idiot if you think there was ever a time I didn’t want to touch you.”

Clint finally looks at him, through his lashes, a wry smile on his lips. “Oh,” he says, like this is light and easy. “I musta been mistaken then. Because you did touch me. And then you left. Because you clearly didn’t want… that.”

Bucky _did not come here to do this_. It hurts like an open wound, one he’s been ignoring for seven fucking years, and Bucky knows better than anyone that sometimes… Sometimes you’ve just gotta let a wound hurt. Let it fester. Let it become part of what you feel every day. Some things don’t heal and they just become part of being alive. He eats, he sleeps, he breathes, and he bleeds from a wound that isn’t ever gonna heal. That’s just the way it works.

Just now, though, the breathing part’s getting a little tough. He forces himself to take a deep, slow breath and then says, even, “What I want has always been more than what I’m worth.”

Clint’s eyes are narrow. He’s putting bandaids on his knuckles and they’re crooked, lopsided, wrinkled. Bucky wants to push his hand away, to do it himself, because Clint is hurt and deserves more care than that, but he doesn’t.

“Bullshit,” Clint says, soft. He doesn’t look up again, focused on his bandaids.

His hands bandaged, Clint tosses the first aid kit on the counter and turns back to his pasta. The silence is different now, sharper. Less lost and more deliberate.

And Bucky still doesn’t know how to break it.

Clint doesn’t seem to be struggling with that. He says finally, after a few half-hearted bites of pasta, “Why are you even here? I thought the point of ditching me in Prague was because you didn’t wanna see me. Didn’t think the almost-end of the world would change your mind on that.”

So we’re doing this, Bucky thinks, grim. But maybe it was stupid to think they wouldn’t. That the past would stay the past. It’s just… Bucky’s been in cryo and he’s been dusted for five years and that took away a lot of his processing time, but Clint hadn’t been. He’d been here, living his life. Bucky thought having those extra years might’ve made it easier for him.

Honestly, he hadn’t thought what happened with them would have meant all that much to Clint, in the long run.

It had meant everything to Bucky.

He’s not hungry anymore and he shoves his plate aside, drains his beer, and says, “The night before the battle we lost in Wakanda, before the snap, Natasha and I went up to the tower roof in the palace. It was her idea. She had some whiskey and drank it until her words were sliding together and soft.”

Clint breathes carefully. “Nat didn’t do that. Didn’t let anything slow her reflexes.”

Bucky shrugs. “It was the last night before the end of the world. She made an exception. She got drunk and she made me promise that if anything were to happen to her, I’d find you. I’d make sure you were okay. I’d take care of you.” He wishes he had another drink. Something stronger. No one’s ever managed to find a drink strong enough to affect him though. And fuck, he’d looked. He’d drank just about anything he could find, trying to dull his broken brain, especially those first few weeks, in Romania.

Clint snorts. He’s still eating but not like he’s enjoying it. More like he’s working on automatic. “Why’d you ever agree to that?”

“Hard to say no to Natasha,” Bucky says. He still remembers her pale face, her wide, furious eyes, the way her lips trembled and he didn’t know if she was scared or pissed off. It hadn’t made a difference in the end. “Besides… I’d have done my best to take care of you either way.”

Clint stands up abruptly, chair scraping across the floor as he takes his plate, drops it on the floor for Lucky to lick clean.

“She was fine though,” Clint says. “After the snap. She was -- it wasn’t her. She wasn’t the one -- you were the one who was gone.” He swallows, grabs another beer out of the ice box, pops it open. “She lived and you didn’t and -- and five years is a long time to miss someone you’d already lost.”

“Clint,” Bucky says, quiet, getting to his feet. 

Clint shakes his head, takes a long drink of his beer, rubs his mouth on the back of his wrist, and says, “Well, as you can see, I’m fine. You can leave in the morning and— Take Lucky and —” He waves his hand, trying to sound dismissive, like he’s not shaking. Like his voice didn’t break, just a little.

“Always trying to get rid of me,” Bucky says, still soft, like Clint is something breakable. He’s half convinced if he moves too fast, if he speaks too loudly, Clint’ll spook and disappear into the woods again and Bucky doesn’t know if he’d bother coming back this time. So he eases closer, watching him carefully, not at all sure what to do if Clint breaks apart any further.

“From what I recall, you’re always the one trying to leave,” Clint says with a sharp laugh. “So I don’t even know what you’re doing here at all. If you don’t -- if you’re not --” 

Bucky is closer than he meant to get and Clint is leaning closer, like it’s instinctive. Like he doesn’t even know he’s doing it. Like a flower leaning towards the sun.

And Bucky can’t help it. He jerks away.

He can’t -- he can’t _touch_ him. Bucky wasn’t worth touching him before he knew what Clint was. He’s certainly not good enough to do it now.

Clint flinches. “Fuck,” he says, stumbling back against the counter. He turns his back to Bucky, runs his fingers over the new cupboard door, taking a deep breath. “Fuck, why are you fucking here, I don’t understand why the fuck--”

“She told me what you are, Clint,” Bucky says, quiet. Clint goes very still.

“She wouldn’t,” he says. “She promised.”

“She was worried about what you’d do if you lost her.”

Clint laughs and it sounds ugly. “And you believed her?” he sneers. He’s still not looking at Bucky. “You’ve seen a lot of magical creatures in Russia, Bucky? In cryo? Saw a lot of dragons and werewolves and shit? The Loch Ness monster? What kinda monsters’ve they got in the mountains when you fell off that train? Is that how you survived? Is that --”

He’s lashing out blindly. Bucky knows he is. Steve used to do the same when he was cornered, when he was scared and knew whatever was going to happen next was going to hurt. He never managed to land a blow when he got that way and Clint is just as bad now.

“I saw a lot of things that didn’t make much sense with Hydra,” Bucky says evenly, quietly. “And you were always a bit shit at being human. Too clumsy, too big, too pretty.” He shrugs. “And then able to focus, to make damned near impossible shots. Thought you must be somethin’ magical. A unicorn didn’t seem so impossible, when she told me.”

Clint is breathing hard, like he’s about to have a full blown panic attack, and Lucky whines, pressing close to his knees and panting up at him, tail thumping against the floor. Bucky wants to touch, to soothe the tension from his shoulders, but hell. He knows how much blood is on his goddamn hands.

“When you got hurt,” Bucky says, when Clint doesn’t come up with anything to say. “It never seemed to stick. You were always getting banged up, so many cuts and bruises and they’d be gone in a day or two. And sometimes, you almost seemed to glow, when you were happy. Your laughter lit up the room.” He rubs the back of his neck, awkward, and confesses. “Thought I was just… thought it was just me. There hadn’t been much laughter like that for me. Not in decades. And it was so easy for you. And it felt like sunshine. But… but not so much, anymore.”

“Fuck,” Clint mumbles. “ _Fuck_.” He turns around, leaning back against the counter, glaring at Bucky and looking paler, sharper then he had before. His eyes are bright and almost feverish, a furious shade of blue.

“That was. That was Natasha.” He clears his throat. “The healing. That was…” He clenches his jaw. “Unicorns are -- were. They were pack animals. Herds. Safety in numbers. The more in the pack, the stronger the magic. But I’m the last -- there weren’t any left.” He clears his throat, breathing out, looking away. “But we just need one. One bond. One… like a soul mate. And Natasha was mine.”

Bucky nods, slow, because he’d thought maybe it was something like that. He hadn’t known the details, of course, and Natasha hadn’t shared them. But he figured it had to be something like him and Steve -- a reason to keep going when there didn’t seem to be much worth fighting for anymore.

And Bucky knows what it feels like to lose Steve, who chose to go. So he can’t imagine what it feels like for Clint. Natasha chose to go too, Bucky supposes, but the circumstances were different. Someone had to die to get the stone to save the world and, from what Bucky’s heard, Clint tried his best to be the one to go. Natasha’s always been just a little faster, just a little stronger. A little quicker to go for the weak spots.  
“It wasn’t romantic. Or sexual. Or anything like you’re thinking. It was more than that. Deeper. It was -- ”

“I know,” Bucky says.

Clint looks at him and goes quiet, chewing his bottom lip before nodding once and looking away. He knows about Steve. He’s gotta know that Bucky understands those kinds of bonds.

“Barney died and I was alone,” Clint says finally, careful and so tired. “Without a pack, we just. There isn’t anything to anchor our magic.” He shrugs. “So we just fade away. And now that she’s gone…”

“Clint.”

“Now that she’s gone…” He studies his hand with it’s crooked bandaids and looks up helplessly. “I thought the fading would happen faster.”

Bucky clenches his hands to hide that they’re shaking, to keep himself from reaching out for Clint, who looks uncertain and vulnerable, the way he never did before. “There are still things worth sticking around for,” Bucky tells him.

Clint laughs dryly. “Yeah, Barnes?” he says, rolling his eyes. “What are you sticking around for, now that Steve’s spent his life just about as far from you as he could get. Now that the world is broken and falling apart and people were missing for five fucking years and no one needs us anymore until the next alien attack and even then, they’ve got Captain Marvel. What are you sticking around for?”

He swallows hard because Clint finally hit a weak spot. His voice is a little rough when he says, “Just sticking around because I made Natasha a promise.”

Clint exhales heavily, closing his eyes and trying to smile but it comes out more pained than it should.

“She was too high a cost for a world that wasn’t worth saving,” Clint says.

And Bucky can’t really argue that.

*

Clint goes to bed. He’s exhausted, pale and shaken and Bucky doesn’t know what to say to convince him to stay, to work this out, not to give up on a world Bucky’s already given up on himself.

So he watches Clint take himself and his dog up to the loft to sleep and then he cleans up the kitchen, he puts away the leftovers, he blows out the lanterns and the candles and then he pulls out his phone for the first time since he arrived.

He’s got 27 texts, mostly from Kate growing increasingly more irate with his silence, and a few from Sam just checking in. Sam’s always been much better at boundaries.

He sends a quick message to Kate -- _found him, he’s okay_ and then turns his phone off before she can reply. He’s lying and he doesn’t want to give her a chance to figure that out. Clint is pretty much the farthest thing from okay and Bucky’s still trying to figure out how the fuck to help him see the joy and wonder of waking up everyday when Bucky stopped celebrating waking up a few decades back.

All being awake means is more pain, more impossible choices, more loss.

He’s tired.

Bucky finally lays down on the sofa, his legs hanging off the end, his head on a balled up sweater, and stares at the cobwebs the spiders are spinning in the rafters.

He’s tired down to his bones but he doesn’t sleep.

*

Morning comes with a vibrant, gorgeous sunrise and Bucky is grateful for the excuse to stop laying there pretending sleep is an option.

It’s all amber and gold and he makes a thermos of Clint’s nasty instant coffee and climbs up the stairs to the loft.

It’s a stupid idea. He doesn’t think it through. He doesn’t think about that night all those years ago, when they were on the run with Steve, when he could have had this -- could have watched Clint wake up like this, twisted in sheets with the soft light of the sunrise spilling across the bed. All golden skin and muscle and bedhead. Laughter and worry lines around Clint’s mouth and across his forehead softened with sleep.

Bucky doesn’t think about it before he makes it to the top of the stairs, but once he’s there, once that’s what he’s seeing, well.

Bucky can’t believe he’s spent any time over these last years thinking of anything else.

He swallows hard and turns to go, discretion the better part of valour, but Clint’s probably never managed to stay sleeping when there’s coffee nearby.

He wakes up with a wrinkled nose, a stretch, a disgruntled mumble, and manages to open one eye, staring blearily before making grabby hands for the thermos.

“Early,” he says. Last time -- years ago -- Bucky hadn’t looked back, not once, as he’d slipped out the door.

Now, confronted with this, Bucky knows there’s no way he’d have made it out the door if he’d looked back and he’s not sure if he regrets it or not. It’s a complicated situation. All those years ago, Clint’s throat had been covered in bruises from Bucky’s mouth and from his hands.

“Get up,” Bucky says. His voice is rough, sounds too intimate, and he hopes Clint’ll think it’s from all the sleep Bucky should have gotten in the night. “I want to see the river.”

“The river?” Clint echoes. “Thought you were leaving today.”

“It’s a fucking river valley, isn’t it?” Bucky says. “Take me to the river. Didn’t come all this way not to see the sights.”

“The sights,” Clint says, smirking a little but as he sits up, sips at the coffee, grimaces. Lucky whines a little and burrows under the sheets. “Right. Okay. You’ll probably be disappointed. Wasn’t worth coming all this way for.”

“I don’t know,” Bucky says, and even as the words are coming from his mouth, he knows he should shut up, shut up, shut his goddamn fucking mouth. He didn’t come here for this. “Found plenty worth looking at so far.”

Clint chokes on the coffee and Bucky finally makes the escape he’s been after.

*

It’s a goddamn drought.

Bucky doesn’t know what he was thinking.

Whatever river carved this idyllic little valley into the hills is nothing more than a parched, cracked river bed with dead and dying grass, water-worn rocks and old animal tracks where the embankment used to be.

Clint’s got sunglasses on and he surveys the scene with a regretful frown. “Told you,” he says. “Hasn’t been water here since spring, with the off.”

Bucky picks up a rock and tosses it on the dried mud that used to be a river. He squints up at the sun and then scans the sky, looking for any sign of clouds. The sky is endless and blue and unbroken.

“When did it rain last?” he asks. His throat is aching from the dust.

“Spring,” Clint says. “Probably. Hasn’t rained much since the snap.” His voice trembles a little bit and Bucky shoots him a look, worried he’s about to cry. He looks like he’s holding back laughter instead. “You think all the dust from all the people who disappeared caused an atmospheric anomaly that fucked up the weather patterns or something? Like a volcanic eruption?”

Bucky doesn’t want to think about where his ashes ended up drifting.

*

It’s too hot and too dry and something has to crack. Bucky thinks he’ll lose his mind if it doesn’t. It’s a pressure cooker of tension and things that want to be said but he’ll bite right through his tongue to keep them silent.

But something’s got to give.

Or he could leave. Clint hasn’t mentioned it but the thermos stands ready, washed out and waiting to be filled for Bucky to take with him on the road. 

Clint spends the day sweeping the spiderwebs that were spun in the rafters overnight, though he tells Bucky they’ll be back by morning.

“It gives the spiders something to do,” he says. “If I left the webs, they’d go crazy from boredom and do something stupid, like crawl into my mouth while I sleep.”

He tidies the kitchen. He sweeps the floor. He shakes out the rugs and the carpets. He opens the windows to let an imaginary breeze in. It’s all routine, all mindless, just as aimless as the spiders spinning webs each night only to lose them in the morning.

But Bucky doesn’t comment. He knows how hard it is to get out of bed sometimes and how impossible it would be if he didn’t have a routine to cling to.

The routine gets broken when everything is tidied and organized and dusted and the bird feeders outside are filled up and so are the bird baths. That’s when Clint looks around, dull and aimless before his eyes brighten and he says, “C’mon, Lucky.”

They play fetch outside for hours and Bucky sits on the porch and watches and smokes a cigarette he knows Steve would bitch at him for.

If Hydra and the Nazis and Thanos hadn’t killed him, Bucky’s pretty sure cigarettes ain’t gonna have much luck either.

The sun starts to set and Clint is laughing at Lucky’s antics and the crickets start singing in the trees, fireflies flickering, and Bucky thinks, accidentally, quietly, in a place he’s never gonna admit to deep in his heart, that this is nice. This is sweet. This is something worth sticking around for. This, he thinks, might be peace.

He hadn’t thought he’d know how to recognize it anymore until he’d found it. 

*

Evening is setting in when they come inside and Clint pulls out a bag of carrots that have seen better days. Bucky doesn’t know what he intends to make for dinner but it’s not his place to criticize.

He offers to help and Clint ignores him so Bucky takes a seat at the table to watch as the light grows dim. He lights the lanterns and the candles and everything is gold and dancing shadows.

This is peace too, he thinks. But different. 

He could get used to peace like this. Even with its core of tension made by the heat and the dust and all the things he wants to say but doesn’t know how.

But Clint still looks haunted. His hands shake when he thinks Bucky’s not looking. One of them is still bandaged up from cracking open on the cupboard door.

Bucky isn’t surprised at all when the knife slips in Clint’s clumsy, bandaged hand and slices across the palm of it.

There’s blood, sharp and coppery, and Clint sucks in a startled breath, and Bucky is already swearing when he goes for the first aid kit.

Bucky doesn’t mean to touch him.

He knows how much blood is on his hands. He knows how much pain, suffering, death he’s caused. He knows he was not good enough to touch Clint when he thought Clint was just a pretty man with a bright smile who somehow made Bucky laugh when he thought there wasn’t anything left to laugh at in the world.

Bucky doesn’t mean to touch him until he does, and then it’s too late and he’s cradling Clint’s hand in his palm and the blood running over his fingers is Clint’s.

Bucky stares at Clint’s hand, at the blood, soaking into the lopsided bandages on his fingers, and then looks up slowly, at Clint, and they are so much closer than Bucky expected them to be. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but it’s not Clint’s eyes, wide and blue and staring into Bucky’s like he’s scared of something. Of being hurt.

Fuck, he should be scared of being hurt. Bucky should let him go, back away. Fill up the goddamn thermos and head for his truck and leave Clint to this tiny slice of peace he’s found.

But he doesn’t. He tightens his grip, just a little, on Clint’s hand and feels it trembling. And he starts to carefully clean up the blood to inspect the damage.

“You were always so clumsy,” Bucky says, clearing his throat, when the silence grows long and strange. “So bad at being human. I shouldn’t have been surprised to find you weren’t. But the wounds never seemed to last very long.”

“That was Nat,” Clint says, and his voice sounds wrecked. Bucky looks up at him startled, and sees that Clint’s eyes are shining now, painfully. He swallows hard and stares at Bucky with an intense sort of longing that Bucky doesn’t know if he fully understands. Clint closes his eyes and takes a shaky breath and says, “It was touch. We need… It’s part of what it means to be what I am. We need touch. Natasha knew that, she was always -- when I was hurt, she’d always touch me. My hair or my arm or whatever.” 

Bucky had noticed. He supposes he never found it overly strange. Natasha didn’t touch anyone else but Clint was always something different than her. Soul mates, he guesses, seems to cover it. There was a deeper bond between them, more than romantic love or friendship or anything else.

But thinking about it now, when she’s gone, makes something tight and hot burn in his chest and it’s already so fucking hot here. He swallows and can’t help running his thumb along the edge of Clint’s bandage, putting pressure on his cut with his other hand, as he asks roughly, “And who’s been touching you since she’s been gone?”

Clint opens his eyes and they’re wide and impossibly blue and he shrugs with a hopeless, small smile on his face and says, “Just you.”

Bucky drops his hand like it burns and steps back, almost tripping over his own feet. His Hydra handlers would’ve punished him for weeks for that lack of grace.

“Clint,” Bucky says, helpless, but Clint’s shoulders are shaking with a silent sort of laughter as he turns back to the counter and his forgotten carrots.

“I have ranch in the ice box,” Clint says. “Coffee and carrot sticks for dinner. Gourmet. I’ll even pack some for you to take on the road tomorrow, if you want.”

“Clint,” he says again, because he doesn’t have words for anything else, doesn’t know where to start or what to say. 

He could just go. Sure, it’s getting dark and he hasn’t slept in too many days, but he’s been through worse. He’d be fine. He’d drive to the nearest roadside motel and sleep a few hours and then… and then…

Where would he go?

There’s nothing for him beyond that shitty roadside motel. But at least they wouldn’t serve him instant coffee.

“I am not good enough to touch you,” Bucky says, quiet and firm and somehow gentle. “My hands can do a lot of things, but healing isn’t one of them. You know that.”

Clint chops a carrot. It slips and he nearly cuts himself again but Bucky doesn’t want to get close enough to take the knife from him. “Is that why you left before?” Clint asks, making a big show of being casual, like his hand isn’t shaking where it’s holding the knife.

“You’re going to lose a finger,” Bucky tells him.

“Because from what I recall,” Clint starts.

“Let me cut the fucking carrots.” Bucky’s losing patience and the tension is growing sharper and if something doesn’t break--

“From what I _recall_ ,” Clint says again, louder, drowning Bucky out. “Before, when you touched me, you were really fucking good at making me beg.” He slams the knife down, turns on his heel, leans back against the counter, and snarls, “And it definitely wasn’t because it hurt.”

Bucky flinches. It’s hard to breathe for a moment, his breath catching painfully in his chest, because he remembers. Of course he remembers. He remembers finally being brave enough to reach out and touch -- how simple and easy it felt, when nothing had felt simple and easy in so long. He remembered his first kiss in 70 years, how Clint had laughed into it, had pulled him back so they tumbled together on the bed, how the laughing didn’t stop, because Clint was always laughter and light and Bucky can remember his hands -- both of them -- on Clint’s body, on his skin, tracing constellations over him as Bucky promised himself that he could do this, he could learn this, he would be so, so good for the rest of his life if only he got to have this. He prayed to a god he stopped believing in decades ago to help him be gentle, to be careful, to ignore the blood staining his hands and relearn his strength so he could touch like this, with Clint, and make him laugh or sigh or moan or beg and never, ever hurt him.

But Bucky’s hands weren’t meant for that.

And trying to ignore blood stains that sink straight down to the bone and muscle memory was never gonna work.

And god stopped answering Bucky’s prayers during the war, why would he start now? What had Bucky ever done to deserve an answered prayer?

And they’d fallen asleep tangled together and aching in the sweetest way Bucky could remember ever feeling pain. 

And then he woke up hours later from a nightmare with his hands locked around Clint’s throat, bruises already dark and vivid and raw.

He stares at his hands now -- the metal one, dull and dark, and the other one, where Clint’s blood has dried into a wine red stain.

“I wasn’t good enough to touch you before I knew what you are,” Bucky tells him, hollow. He doesn’t look away from the blood on his hands. “I’m certainly not good enough now that I know you’re a unicorn. Don’t you need purity? Isn’t that -- that’s what a unicorn is. Purity and goodness and light and -- and not meant to be touched by bloody hands like mine.”

“Virgins,” Clint snorts, sounding tired, and Bucky looks up through his lashes to see him roll his eyes. “Right.”

And then he steps forward, knife forgotten on the counter, and carefully, deliberately, takes Bucky’s hand. He pulls him, gentle, and Bucky’s helpless and can’t help but follow, as Clint tugs him over to the sink and turns on the water.

He’s got soap that smells of honey and lavender and it reminds Bucky suddenly, viscerally, of the way Natasha used to smell after they’d found another rundown motel to crash in. She’d call dibs on the shower and the steam would smell like that and he misses her so much, suddenly, it’s hard to breathe.

“My brother died and I was alone,” Clint tells him, keeping his voice soft, like he’s worried he’s going to spook Bucky, like Bucky’s the one who might be frightened here. The warm water runs over Bucky’s palm and Clint works the soap in, water running rust brown for a moment and then clear. Clint keeps gently washing Bucky’s hand like there’s still a bloodstain he’s trying to get out. “Waiting to fade away without any magic, any pack, to anchor me. D’you know how I met Natasha? Did I tell you?”

“No,” Bucky says, rough. They’re too close. Clint’s bent over the sink, the back of his neck exposed under a sweep of unkempt blonde hair, looking too vulnerable by far.

“She was crying,” Clint says. “About 12 years old. A scrawny, freckly redheaded kid standing stone still in the woods and crying. Silent. Tears running down her pointed face. Hands dripping in blood. Just made her first kill.” He’s working the warm water carefully between Bucky’s fingers now and he looks up, slow and careful, and says, “I took one look at her and knew she was meant to be mine. My sister, my pack, my soulmate, whatever you call it. She was mine and I was hers and I didn’t give a fuck that she was fresh from her first assassination, that she was a trained killer, that she was waiting for her handlers to pick her up. Didn’t give a fuck how much blood was on her hands. Purity hasn’t got a damned thing to do with where your dick’s been or how much blood someone else has forced your hands to spill.”

Bucky’s breath comes out in a shaky rush and he needs to pull away, needs to turn away from Clint’s wide eyes, the simple sincerity in them, the idea that anything could be this simple or easy between them.

He closes his hand into a fist and he means to pull away but all he ends up doing is trapping Clint’s hand in his, water rushing over them both, and he sees the way that touch runs through Clint, a faint shudder that sends goosebumps running up his arms. His eyes darken, dilating a bit, and they’re standing so, so close.

“It’s not that simple,” Bucky tries to tell him.

Clint sways closer, licking his bottom lip and staring at Bucky’s and says, “Nothing heals properly without that connection, Bucky.” His voice drops softer, broken. “And losing Natasha hurt more than anything else and it won’t get better. Please, please, just. Help me get a little better.”

“I’m not -- I’m not pure,” Bucky tells him, desperate, but he’s leaning closer just the same. Maybe he needs to touch Clint just as badly as Clint needs to be touched, just to prove he can, that he can touch without hurting. That he can be gentle.

Clint looks suddenly playful, almost like the laughing, sweet Clint he was before. “I don’t know,” Barnes,” he says, and his lips are just a breath away from Bucky’s. “I don’t think you’re irredeemable.”

Bucky doesn’t know what he’s doing. Clint is so close and there are reasons why this cannot happen but for the goddamn life of him, Bucky can’t remember what they are.

And the idea of Clint hurting and being unable to heal since losing Natasha makes him furious, makes him want to go back two years ago and make sure Clint didn’t have a chance to get away, to isolate himself and hide and wait to fade. Makes him want to go back two years ago, to Tony Stark’s bullshit memorial, and wrap himself around Clint and hold him and touch him until the broken parts started knitting back together again.

He touches Clint’s face with his wet hand, rivulets of water running down Clint’s cheek, and then he says roughly, “I’m not going to hurt you this time.”

“As long as you’re here in the morning,” Clint says, determined and breathless and swaying closer.

Bucky kisses him and it’s like static electricity. It’s a shock that goes right down to his bones. It runs from the soles of his feet to the tips of his fingers and back again and it’s too intense and not intense enough and he suddenly feels like he’s drowning, like he’s been struggling to breathe for seven goddamn years and now, he can finally inhale.

It’s desperate and rougher than it should be -- Bucky needs to be careful, he needs to be gentle, he cannot leave a mark this time, not with his mouth nor his hands. He can’t, he can’t, he won’t.

But there’s a raw sort of hunger he can’t quite shake and Clint shakes against him, echoing it in a feedback loop that sends electricity through Bucky’s skin.

And then he realizes there’s lightning flashing outside, lighting up the bone-dry valley.

“Electrical storm,” Clint tells him. “Happens all the time. Never even bothers to rain. It’s fine, it’s fine, unless something lights on fire, c’mon, c’mere.”

He pulls Bucky towards the stairs to the loft and then up them, tripping over his own feet and laughing and for a moment, as they tumble into the bed together, tangled up with clothing falling away so easily, it feels safe and sweet and seven years ago.

But this is much more complicated and everything feels balanced on the edge of pleasure and pain and Bucky feels like he and Clint have both spent the last seven years in various stages of dying.

And maybe this is the first time Clint’s been able to take a breath too.

So they breathe together, Clint’s laugher fading to shaky sighs and soft moans and Bucky’s breathing growing rough, aching. It’s fast and rough and feels like breathing after years of being underwater and Bucky is so, so careful not to leave a mark.

They fall asleep tangled together just as the storm breaks above and it starts to rain.

*

The rain washes away the dust that’s been itching in Bucky’s throat since he got here, and he sleeps for three hours. He’s shocked he slept at all -- he hadn’t meant to.

Clint is sleeping, pressed up against him the way only a touch-starved unicorn could be, starfished and sprawled across the entire bed, naked and in desperate need of a shower but entirely unselfconscious.

Bucky wants to stay there forever, listening to the rain on the roof and Clint’s soft snoring.

But he’s growing anxious and achy and not at all sure this is what Natasha meant when she asked him to make sure Clint was okay if she couldn’t.

He extracts himself from Clint carefully, slowly, and stands up, feet bare against the floorboards. He grabs his pants, his shirt, avoids Lucky’s watchful gaze, and makes his way to the stairs.

“You running again?” Clint asks, guarded, softened with sleep. His eyes are still closed.

Was he running? Bucky has no fucking clue anymore.

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” Bucky tells him. Clint opens his eyes and watches Bucky silently in the dark, waiting, and Bucky finally says, “It isn’t safe.”

“Bullshit,” Clint says, quiet.

“That night before,” Bucky says, closing his eyes because he’s tried so hard to forget it. “The last time I touched you. We -- I fell asleep.”

“I remember.”

“And I had a nightmare.” He opens his eyes and looks at Clint because he doesn’t deserve to hide from this. “And I almost killed you.”

Clint tips his head a little, considering. “That’s why you ran?”

“I strangled you in my sleep,” Bucky says, growing a little louder, a little more upset. “I could have killed you. You had bruises -- there were bruises all around your throat from my hands.”

“It wasn’t the best way to wake up,” Clint agrees, wrinkling his nose. “But I was mostly just pissed that you were gone.”

“I had to go,” Bucky says. He’s feeling desperate, flight or fight making it hard to breathe, but somehow his feet are rooted to the floor. Maybe he’s done running. Maybe it isn’t worth it. It’s hard to tell. “I had to--”

“To disappear to Wakanda with Steve and go into cryo,” Clint says, mouth twisting as he props himself up on his elbows. His hair is a mess, his face is flushed, pillow marks pressed into his cheek. “I know.”

Bucky rubs at his face, his hair, the back of his neck. His hands are shaking and he doesn’t know if running is worth it or if it helps at all, but maybe he’s so goddamn tired of running.

He’s got nowhere left to run anyway.

“I wasn’t supposed to be gone so long. I thought it would be faster,” Bucky confesses finally, quietly. Full of regret. “I just. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

Clint is quiet for a moment and Bucky doesn’t want to look at him, but the silence stretches out into the darkness and wraps around him more and more tightly until it feels like he can’t breathe. He looks up to find Clint watching him, head tipped thoughtfully to the side.

“Was it worth it?” he asks abruptly.

Bucky still doesn’t know and he feels helpless and stupid. “I couldn’t stay,” he says, voice cracking a little. “It wasn’t worth the risk.”

Clint swings his feet over to the floor, sitting there for a moment as he runs his hands through his hair, blinking sleepily and clearly trying to wake up enough for this conversation. Bucky wishes he’d made it back to the couch before Clint had woken at all, but hell. Then he’d miss getting to see him like this, sleepy and ruffled, with wild bedhead and marks from Bucky’s scruff all over his face and throat and the insides of his thighs. He’s all lit up by the moonlight coming through the window, spun silver and gold, and Bucky has no idea how he ever could have mistaken him for something human.

If he was Steve, he’d probably be itching for a pencil and some paper right about now, but Bucky’s never been the artistic sort. So he just watches and tries to commit the shades and shadows and colours to memory because he learned long ago that he never gets to keep precious things like this.

“But did it work?” Clint asks finally, blinking down at the floor and shrugging his shoulders, helpless. “You left me to go get your brain fixed. Did they fix it?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says roughly. “Shuri fixed it.”

“Then what are you scared of this time?” Clint asks with another shrug, blinking up at him and looking lost. 

“I.” Bucky swallows hard. His breath catches in his lungs, his chest aches with something that feels like panic, and he doesn’t know what to say. What is he scared of?

Hell, he’s scared of everything. Of a world without Steve, of a world where he missed five years, of a world that could be erased by megalomaniac aliens at a moment’s notice, of trying to build a life in a world that doesn’t seem real anymore, of accepting that this _is_ reality and it’s a reality he helped build and his hands will never be clear of the blood that stains them. He’s scared of wanting Clint, of admitting to wanting Clint, because the second he admits he wants something, he loses it. He knows he’s not good enough to have it.

But fuck, for one moment, he wishes he was selfish enough to reach out and take.

He closes his eyes instead and breathes carefully and says, “You’re a unicorn. And I’m --”

Clint stands up then, chewing his bottom lip as he comes closer, careful like he expects Bucky to run. Bucky holds himself still, almost afraid to breathe, and Clint stops in front of him, studying him for a moment before reaching out with both hands and taking Bucky’s metal one.

“I know what you are,” he says, quiet. “I’ve always known what you are. And there’s more than one way to be a good man. Not all of us are built to be Captain America but you and I both know if you hadn’t been there pulling his ass out of trouble his whole life, he’d never have made it to be Captain America at all.” Clint studies Bucky’s metal hand for a moment before carefully lacing their fingers together, holding tight. “There’s more than one way to save the world, Bucky, just like there’s about a billion ways to be pure and good and I’ve known what you are since the moment I met you.”

“Clint,” Bucky says, and he doesn’t know what he’s going to say, can’t think of what to say that won’t sound desperate and ridiculous in the face of Clint’s quiet, sleepy certainty.

“But if you think I won’t stab the shit out of you the next time you wake me up in the middle of the fucking night and expect me to be a functional person, you’re mistaken,” Clint continues, scowling sleepily, “I’m tired, Barnes. Come back to bed with me.”

It feels so simple when he says it like that.

And it’s easier than Bucky expected to let Clint tug him across the room and back into bed.

Clint falls asleep in moments, curled up against Bucky, arms wrapped around him like an octopus, like he hasn’t got a single hesitation about falling asleep on top of the Winter Soldier, but Bucky stays awake for a while longer.

He listens to the rain on the roof and Clint’s soft breathing and wonders if walking away all those years ago was worth it, if it led to this. If losing everyone and everything they’d lost was worth it.

It’s an impossible equation and he’s still doing the math when he drifts off to sleep.

*

It’s still raining in the morning, and dawn breaks in shades of green and gold. It smells clean and fresh and Bucky feels safe, sleepy and warm and doesn’t want to move.

Clint is still sleeping, face mashed into a pillow that he’s clutching against his chest. One of his legs is locked around Bucky’s, ankles hooked together, and when Bucky shifts a little, Clint mumbles threateningly in his sleep.

So Bucky just relaxes into the softness of the morning, watching Clint sleep and counting his freckles absently and it’s a much better equation to think about than the one he struggled with before sleeping the night before.

It’s a long while later when Clint finally moves, rubbing his face against the pillow before turning towards Bucky, blinking awake. He smacks his lips together and rubs at the sleep in his eyes, squinting at Bucky with his nose wrinkling up in distaste. His morning breath is awful and it’s nothing at all as elegant and beautiful as a unicorn ought to be.

“Morning,” Bucky says, soft.

Clint squeezes his eyes shut against the light and mumbles, “You’re still here.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, and Clint hums in approval. Silence stretches out between them but this one is sweeter and softer and Bucky breathes into it and feels something like contentment settle in his chest.

Bucky slides his hands across the tangled sheets and touches Clint’s cheek, tracing his fingertip along the pillow crease there, and a soft sound catches in Clint’s throat as he leans into the touch, chasing it like a flower chasing sunlight.

Clint needs touch to heal, Bucky remembers, so he gives it to him, cradling his cheek with one hand. “I always felt safe and warm with you,” he confesses, cheeks warming up. “Is that a unicorn thing?”

“Nah, Barnes,” Clint mumbles, pressing his lips to Bucky’s palm, hiding a grin. “That’s probably just because you liked me.”

Bucky can’t help laughing a little. “Tell me more about what you are.”

Clint blinks his eyes open and looks at Bucky sleepily for a moment before rolling his shoulders and saying, “A unicorn, Bucky, we covered this.”

“Don’t see a horn,” Bucky says, brushing a metal fingertip against Clint’s forehead. “And the rest of you seems more man than animal.”

“Mmm,” Clint mumbles, still sleepy. “I’m magic, Bucky. You just gotta believe.” He laughs a little, soft, and then says, “It’s a shapeshifting thing, I guess. We evolved with all sorts of magical defenses but most of us were hunted to extinction a long time ago. Only those of us who could hide, change shape, live among the hunters, were saved.” He shrugs. “And even then, not many.”

“So you can change back?”

Clint sits up abruptly, turning to slide his feet to the floor, his back to Bucky. His shoulders are slumped and the line of his spine looks soft and vulnerable like this. There are freckles across his shoulder blades and sprinkling down to his hips and Bucky wants to count them with his tongue.

“No,” Clint says finally, with a shrug, like it’s easy. Like he isn’t carrying his dejection in his slumped shoulders.

Bucky sits up and slides close behind him, wrapping his arms around Clint’s shoulders and holding him tight. “Why?”

Clint laughs but it doesn’t sound amused. “I don’t remember how,” he confesses. “I haven’t shifted, not since meeting Nat, and it’s like anything, I guess… My body doesn’t remember how. I just keep… existing in this cabin, waiting to fade back into my other form and then away forever because there’s nothing worth staying here for anymore, not without Natasha, and I can’t -- the stupid fucking thing is, I don’t remember how. I’m _broken_.”

Bucky presses closer, so his chest is all along Clint’s back, holding him more tightly, pressing a kiss to his temple and saying, “If touch helps you heal, maybe I can help fix it. Fix you.”

Clint turns to look at him and it’s awkward, the way they’re pressed together, but he doesn’t pull away. He just studies Bucky’s face for a moment and asks, “You planning on staying that long?”

“I could stick around for a bit,” Bucky tells him and Clint starts to relax against his chest again, letting out a soft breath.

“Yeah?” he asks.

“As long as you want me to.”

Clint lets his head fall back against Bucky’s shoulder, not minding the place where flesh turns to metal, and he hums, “I’m worth staying for?”

“I don’t know,” Bucky says, quiet. “Am I?”

Because sticking around to help heal him so he can shift and fade away is pretty much the last thing Bucky wants to do, but hell. If a few weeks or months of being with Clint is all he gets, Bucky knows it’s more than he deserves.

Clint closes his eyes but Bucky can see him smile. “Yeah,” he says. “I think you might be.”

*

It takes six weeks.

The river comes back and they take Lucky there almost every day, exploring and splashing in the water and watching the grasses start sprouting along the bank. They fix up the cabin, working on leaking faucets and creaky floorboards until the place is shining and new. They take a few trips to town, stocking up on food and booze and dog toys and clean underwear.

Bucky counts all of Clint’s freckles with his tongue a time or two but he’s always willing to count them again, and each day gets lighter and lighter until it’s easier to breathe. Until the aches and bruises in Bucky’s heart feel old and soft with time instead of fresh and likely to start bleeding again at any sudden movement.

And with each touch and kiss and trip to the river, each adventure and each new floorboard, Clint’s eyes get brighter and less lifeless. The sun puts new freckles on his face and shoulders, a flush of colour along his cheeks, and Clint looks almost how Bucky remembers from Prague -- not the pale, withdrawn version Bucky had found when he’d first come here.

And then, one day, when they’re making their way down to the river in a fresh rainstorm, Clint stumbles on a loose stone and almost falls down the embankment.

Bucky reaches out and grabs his hand, holds him steady and says, “You okay, Barton?”

It’s such a simple thing, an easy touch like countless easy touches over the past weeks, but maybe it’s the last one Clint needs. Maybe it’s a final bit of proof that Clint is worth staying for and Bucky’s gonna catch him when he falls and even though good things can be harder to find in a world as fucked up as this one is, that doesn’t mean they’re not worth looking for.

Maybe it’s Bucky’s smile, soft and unguarded and glittering with raindrops, or his eyes, wide and amused.

Maybe it’s Lucky, running ahead happily or the fresh sprouts growing all around them or the moss on the trees or the leaves dripping with rain or the soft ground beneath their feet or the clouds above or the sound of the rushing river just ahead.

Whatever it was, Bucky thinks later, it must have reminded Clint how magic is supposed to feel.

“Oh,” Clint says, breathless. “Oh, oh, I _remember_.”

When Bucky lets go of his hand, he swears, just for a moment, that Clint’s skin is glittering gold where Bucky touched him.

And then a moment later, there is a flash of light and Clint is gone and there is a very pretty, very startled unicorn standing in his place.

Bucky doesn’t know what he expected. But Clint as a unicorn is tall and sleek and beautiful, all ivory and gold with familiar bright blue eyes. He’s all corded muscle and strength and a spiral horn with a deadly sharp point.

“Oh,” Bucky says, at a loss.

The unicorn tosses his mane and his eyes go wide with delight and then he leaps in a quick circle, bucking and kicking and clearly trembling with energy and excitement.

He wants to run, even Bucky can tell that, so he says, “Go. It’s fine, go, I’ve got the dog, just. Just come home again.”

So Clint rears up and kicks his hooves and tosses his head and then he’s gone, leaping over the rock he’d just tripped on, barrelling through the trees towards the river with just a little bit more grace than he’d had when he was human.

*

He comes back at dusk, sweaty and naked and shaking with adrenaline, and before Bucky can even ask him one of the million questions he’d had time to think up while Clint was gone, he’s climbing Bucky like a tree and kissing him, all teeth and tongue and energy.

Bucky doesn’t mind, just catches him and kisses him back and holds him tight and everywhere he touches, Clint’s skin shimmers gold.

*

In the morning, Bucky’s aching because apparently he’s too old for floor sex. Kitchen sex. Shower sex. And bed sex. At least all in the same night.

But Clint is content and sleeping and he’d begged Bucky to leave marks all down his throat with his mouth and Bucky brushes his fingers over them without even a hint of regret as he slips out of bed. 

Clint doesn’t wake at all and Bucky goes to make coffee. He lets Lucky out and while the water boils, he checks his phone for the first time in a week or two.

He’s got one voicemail and countless texts and he listens to the voicemail while grabbing mugs from the cupboard.

“Barnes,” it says and he freezes, staring into the open cupboard. “Do you have any idea how long it takes to get home from space? You better have found him and you better have taken care of him. You promised. Now bring him home.”

The mug slips from Bucky’s numb fingers and he spins around as he hears a strange, strangled sound. It’s Clint, standing in the doorway, wearing Bucky’s underwear and looking ruffled, half asleep, and stunned.

“Natasha?” he asks, voice cracking with sleep and god knows what else. “She’s --”

“Pack your shit. We’ve gotta get you home,” Bucky tells him.

Clint turns and dashes back up the stairs to the loft, stubbing his toe and cursing and laughing as he goes.

Bucky’s hands are shaking as he cleans up the broken mug and then the water. Bucky pulls Clint’s beaten up thermos out of the cupboard, putting it carefully on the counter.

He fills it with enough coffee for two.

The End.

**Author's Note:**

> Spoiler notes: In this fic, Clint believes Natasha is dead. Part of what keeps a unicorn functional is a "pack" and Natasha was Clint's only family left and he is furious that she was sacrificed to save the world, so he's decided he wants no part in the world. He's withdrawn from the world, intending to let his magic (and himself) fade away. It might read as being suicidal though that was not my intent, so if this is something that might be triggering for you, you might not want to read.
> 
> Also, I set this post-end game but if everyone else got to come back, so does Natasha, so fuck Marvel, she's not really dead in this. Just lost. Tony still is, though. And Steve still did his disappearing back into time shit but it's barely a plot point. I just didn't have the time, space or capacity to deal with undoing massive amounts of character assassination in a fic about Bucky and Clint and unicorns.


End file.
